Sermon for the 1 st Sunday after Epiphany, January 10, 2010
“… present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. ”
Yesterday I found a young man parked in this back lot with his car's hood up, looking like he had mechanical trouble. I asked him, and he said his battery had died. “Need a jump?” I asked, and he said he did. So, while I was giving his battery some of my car's juice we fell into talking. He was interested that I was the priest here at this church. Then he told me he grew up atheist.
“Were you a devout atheist?” I asked. He liked the question, and said that indeed he had been a devout atheist , but today he senses there is a God. We had a long and wonderful discussion until his car started and we both rolled away. My question about the devout atheist remained in my mind, however, and I concluded that what we need are more devout, and less fair-weather atheists.
A fair-weather atheist keeps his faith in God's non-existence only while times are good. As long as life is fine, and things seem easy, our fair-weather atheist feels free to accept all the credit and soak up the pleasures of life. But strip away the veneer of good times and this kind of atheist's unbelief waivers, he looks skyward and shakes his fist, he might even bend his knees and pray for relief from pain, disease, hardship and war, acknowledging the God he previously denied but whom he needs when crisis hits him. It has been said there are no atheists in foxholes. If there are, they are only devout atheists.
In a strangely reverse way, some Christians have been raised as fair-weather believers. Their faith in Christ has somehow been based on a promise that life with Jesus is going to always be pleasant, give the dividends of health, wealth and children with straight teeth. It's sort of a Christianized Old Covenant, where the children of Israel were promised a land flowing with milk and honey, long lives, peace on their borders, and the blessings of this life if they believed in and obeyed the God of Abraham . The Christian version is like that, but now it's all wonderful so long as they believe in Jesus, and they can do whatever they please. But let the storms of life blow, their stock values whither, a relationship go sour, or a kidney fail and these fair-weather Christians can become foul-weather atheists. Their god is no longer in charge of their world, for he can't seem to give them the payout their faith previously earned them.
Strife lights the match to the Bunsen burner of an experiment that proves or disproves our faith. Faith without testing is still theoretical. Faith under ideal conditions is only circumstantial evidence of believing, or in the case of the atheist, of disbelieving. The test of our convictions is when the storms of life hit us and we must prove we're faithful even when it hurts. That's what a living sacrifice is like.
Our Epistle today holds two great verses from Romans. “ I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Rom. 12:1-2 I have often spoken of the priesthood of all Christians, a doctrine espoused by many in order to defeat an actual church priesthood like mine, but seldom understood for the scriptural doctrine that it is. A priest is called by God, trained and prepared, then initiated by some special ceremonial passage. As a priest, he must make the proper sacrifice to God, an offering specifically called for by God that is accepted, sanctified and transformed, then returned to the priest. The priest must then take the consecrated sacrifice and give it freely to those he is sent to as a priest.
How that looks in a Christian layperson is that the Holy Spirit calls us all to Christ. We learn the faith through Sunday School or Bible reading, proper teaching, and then we are Baptized and Confirmed. We are then to offer our sacrifice, and lo and behold , the offering is ourselves . The great commandment is to love God with all our hearts, minds, and souls . Loving Him is giving these to Him. It's not sentimental, but willful and powerful and permanent. You don't take back what has been given to God: that's stealing from Him, and that is always a bad call. God takes us and transforms us, gives us His Holy Spirit, cleanses us of sin, and if we let Him, He renews our minds . Then He sets us in the world for service to Him by giving what we have to others. You are all priests in this very important way. If you have been called, Baptized, Confirmed, and have offered God truly all you are and all you have, this transaction has taken place and you are His priest.
The priesthood I have through my office in the church is at this altar. Every sacrifice must be placed on an altar, and at this one I offer the bread and wine of Holy Communion. It is blessed by God and returned to me as Christ's Body and Blood. Then I distribute Him in these forms to you at the rail. Every sacrifice needs an altar. What is the altar of your sacrifice?
Again we go to St. Paul. He says to present our bodies to God, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable, our reasonable service . How is this done? What we do in our bodies proves what we believe in our hearts. Where are we today? In church. Okay, we've gotten our bodies in here because we believe the truth of Christ expressed in this place. Good for starters . The priest of this simple transaction is you, and the altar right now is your slightly uncomfortable pew. Kneelers help. The prayer books, hymnals, your participation in liturgy, coming forward to receive Jesus, and even fellowship in the hall downstairs: these are the altar of your worship on Sunday mornings. Now, this is a warm and beautiful place. What if you had to worship outside , cold and hungry, in secret because the government would arrest you for your Christianity? Some of our brothers and sisters must face this question in other lands. As America is today, Christians may still worship in comfortable peace.
Your altar is not the church alone, but your whole life and its various and many circumstances. At work, you face moral decisions and social issues that put your faith on the crucible. Will you be a Christian while at school, even though it brings ridicule and rejection? Are you a Christian in front of the TV, when the remote can take you to any channel, watching any images you choose? How's your driving attitude when the scatterbrain in front of you can't decide which lane to be in? Is Christ your God when you are tempted? Depressed ? Lonely? Sick ? Are you a fair-weather Christian but a foul-weather atheist? Does that make you any better than a fair-weather atheist who is actually a foul-weather believer? The sacrifice will prove the faith, and none of us is saved by a belief system.
The human parents of Jesus were put to their first significant test at the Passover during His 12 th year. Having a perfect son is easy most days, but when you presume upon his conformance to your unexpressed will, he may surprise and even frighten you. Jesus didn't belong to anybody but His Father in heaven. Beloved though they were, these earthly parents were not His ultimate authority. Now imagine : you have a child who is the world's savior, God's own Son. You have traveled the long trail from Nazareth through Samaria, days of walking up to the great city, Jerusalem, where thousands of faithful Jews come every year to offer the sacrifice of Passover and take of the solemn feast of lamb, bitter herbs and unleavened bread. Now you return in the company of all your friends, relatives and townspeople and incorrectly you assume that your precious son is with you. Only after a day's travel do you look for Him and He's nowhere to be found. You've lost the Son of God and you begin to remonstrate with yourself . I think Mary and Joseph have some words with each other at this point: “You were supposed to watch Him!” “No, I last saw Him with you!” A day's hasty travel back, and another fruitless day searching the city, and finally they find Him in the Temple with the elders in deep conversation. “How could you be so irresponsible?” they begin to scold God's Son.
We understand. The loving parent has envisioned all sorts of horrid occurrences where their own failure would have brought a terrible price. We lose our children for a moment in a crowd and terror grips our hearts. Terror is the hottest fire that proves or disproves the faith that we espouse. Mary and Joseph faltered here, but we won't judge them. They weren't punished for misunderstanding, but had their son returned, obedient, wise and whole.
Winds blow. Power fails . Life ebbs. Loved ones die . Money dries up. People break our hearts . Fear stalks us. News sources would have us believe our doom is certain. Real trouble comes to every life. Imagined troubles and sorrows haunt our dreams . These are the very things that in hard times test men's souls and put our faith to the flame that heats the crucible, boils the solution, activates the reagents, and raises the pH until it hurts . Where is your God when it hurts?
Martyrs die once and come to glory if their martyrdom was to the true and only God. Without question, their sacrifice is great and we may all loath to take their place at the stake or on a real cross, flayed alive, facing lions in the arena, or freezing in a locked cell in Siberia. But a living sacrifice is a willing martyrdom that dies to our own flesh, our own will, our own pleasures and former sins—putting them to death with Jesus, for that is why He died. Then we live , and life will give us ample opportunities to prove we love Him who died in our place. Love gets proved when it's hard to love. The sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart God will always accept.
Can we accept the challenge that a devout atheist sets us? Will we keep our faith in God, our undying and undaunted assurance of His good and perfect will, when all seems to go against us? When the fire is lit and turned up all the way, will we meet the ultimate test of our faith which is living the sacrifice ? If so, we'll need provision. At the rail, in a moment, He'll be here to feed you Himself.
PFH+